Random thoughts from a carpetbagger living in the Great Republic of Texas

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

I'll Be the Roundabout

In honor of the World Cup, I will share
a story from my international travels.

My first international business trip
involved traveling to London several years ago where I met a couple
of other contractors who had rented a car. I did not understand why
we rented a car since we would have to to drive on the left side of
the road which none of us had done before. But it wasn't my
decision, and I would simply be a passenger.

We pulled out of the lot and drove
around the airport a couple of times just to get used to this new way
of driving. Finally, we got on the major eight lane highway in
Monday morning rush hour traffic.

The driver said, "I'm just going
to go slow and stay in the right lane until I get the hang of this."

Shortly after pulling into the far
right lane, cars flashed their lights, honked and passengers made
obscene hand gestures to us as they flew by us on the left. We were
surprised that apparently London was the rudest city in the world
before we finally realized that we were in the fast passing lane
while the left lane was actually the slow lane. I decided that I
would not try to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road during
this trip.

Flash forward about six years later
when I had to spend a month in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I stayed
in a company owned townhome along with three co-workers and we shared
a tiny car which made a Smart car look like an SUV. One of my
co-workers was British so he did most of the driving.

One night after spending some time in
the local pub, my British co-worker, who I will refer to as Lloyd
because that was his name and it will help you better imagine his
high class British accent, suggested that I drive us all back to the
townhome.

Lloyd's accent made him sound about ten
times smarter than he actually was, and he was pretty smart. For
example, we could be having an issue with the washing machine and he
might say, "If you put your tongue in the electrical socket,
that will probably solve the problem."

And you would think about it for a
second before saying, "Hey, wait a minute."

"Remember British electrical
sockets are different than American. It's quite safe, really,"
Lloyd would double down.

Next thing you know, you're on your
hands and knees in front of the socket.

Anyway, I explained to Lloyd that was a
bad idea since I had never driven on the left side of the road
before.

"But," Lloyd said, "I
have a British driver's license and if I get pulled over, I'm going
to jail and losing my license. But if you get pulled over with your
American license, it'll be 'alrighty then, off you go, cheerio.'"

That sort of made sense when you hear
it in Lloyd's accent. But looking around at our group, I realized I
was the only one that hadn't heavily imbibed, and it probably did
make sense for me to drive. Besides, it was only one to two miles on
quiet streets and no big intersections save for one roundabout. I
took the car keys from Lloyd.

We stuffed ourselves into the car, and
I pulled into the street. With the steering wheel on the right side
of the car, staying in the left lane would be easier than I thought.
I told everyone to warn me if I accidentally got into the right lane,
but they were so busy giggling, I don't think they heard me.

The drive was uneventful until we got
to the roundabout where I paused then turned to the right. Screaming
from the back seat made me jerk the wheel hard to the left. Luckily,
being in a small car, I was able to turn in the proper direction
without hopping the curb. With all of the yelling and laughing in
the car, I lost track of the proper turn and we completely
circumnavigated the roundabout. And then again.

"I'm starting to get dizzy,"
I said. "Would someone please point out the proper turn."

"Just take the next one,"
Lloyd said. "If we end up back at the pub, it was meant to be."

"We're not going back to the pub."

"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe..."
came another helpful voice from the back.

"Go faster, it's like we're on a
racetrack," said another.

I finally got my bearings and pulled
out of the roundabout onto the correct street. We made it home
without any further issues. After parking the car, Lloyd managed to
fall out of the backseat onto the ground laughing uproariously. I
went inside the house and locked the door.

I learned two valuable lessons that
night:

Driving on the wrong side of the road
for the first time is probably pretty stupid after a night at the pub
even if you aren't drunk.

6 comments:

I would of been terrified. Driving in foreign countries isn't my favorite thing to do but those that require driving on the "wrong" side of the road, freak me out.

I am surprised that the real lesson learned here isn't to not drive a bunch of drunks home. I wouldn't want to put the "alrighty then, off you go, Cheerio" phylosophy to a test. We got a parking ticket in Germany 6 months ago and can't get anyone on the phone that speaks English to help get it paid. We still haven't figured out where we got it. We just got a letter in the mail saying we owe 20 Euro and that if we don't pay they will arrest us.

It actually wasn't that big of adjustment. I had been there nearly a month, I was used to being in the car that way. To me, the bigger adjustment was walking across the street and looking the wrong way for approaching cars.

Unless you plan on going back to Germany, I would imagine you can ignore it. There's a few states I should avoid because of parking tickets. Thanks for the comment!

At least we drive on the right side of the road here in Canada but some of our cities have traffic circles (roundabouts) too. I was 40 years old before I encountered one though -- here in Edmonton where there are two-lane circles which must be navigated by complex rules about who has the right-of-way when. I knew none of those rules. Consequently, I barely escaped with my life the first time I drove in a traffic circle. I feel your pain.

Sorry but that is freaking hilarious that you guys were driving like a snail in the fast lane! "I'm just going to go slow and stay in the right lane until I get the hang of this." Now I have figured out what the hell is the matter with EVERY driver native to Oregon!

About Me

I live in a small town in Texas. I am the real America. I wasn't born in the republic which means I'm not really Texan. I do have a pickup truck but since it's a Nissan, I'm still not considered Texan. I only drive it when no one is looking. I'm a man without a country and a man without a car. I'm an entrepreneur but not a good one as I recently had to close down the family restaurant. But that makes me an economic expert. I can seriously blame the restaurant's closing on Obama, Cheney, NAFTA, Cash for Clunkers, TARP and even Bernie Madoff who never spent millions in my restaurant. Not even a dime.